The House By The Cemetery (Blu-ray)

[Stephen@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by norliss

Another title that seems to come off worse in a comparison with the BU release. Frankly, hardly any of these Italian horrors are done justice on BD largely because of the transfer facility in Italy but Arrow's effort is noticably weaker than BU with a lower bitrate etc.

Why do Arrow keep dropping the ball?

Yeah, half the bitrate of the BU version does it no favours.

[Steel76]

Arrow really needs to boost the bitrate and better their encodings, as they always have problems with this compared to the BU discs.

Another thing Arrow must learn is to put ALL High Def extras on the second disc, which gives the movie much more room to breath in.
As the more High Def stuff you cram on a disc, even dual layer, the more the compression suffers.

I love Arrows packagings and extras, but the quality on the movie itself should ALWAYS be the top priority.
If they get better at the encodings, then they will REALLY leave BU in the dust

[Crimson Blade]

Some people have complained about BU's version being drenched in video noise, but it looks pretty good imo.

Can't comment on Arrow's.

[Steel76]

Yeah, there is videonoise on the BU disc, but it´s thankfully far from being the worst example out there.

I hope we will see these movies transfered at another lab in the future where we could finally get transfers with natural filmgrain and fine-details, without being drenched in videonoise, DNR or other unwanted artifacts.

But until then, the BU disc will do the trick

Someone really should go over to the LVR lab in Italy and smash their faulty old tele-cine equipment to pieces, forcing them to upgrade

[Splatterdragon73]

Originally Posted by norliss

Another title that seems to come off worse in a comparison with the BU release. Arrow's effort is noticably weaker than BU with a lower bitrate etc.

No doubt this is the reason a friend of mine was disappointed with Arrow's transfer and found subsequent satisfaction with BU's BR. He holds on to the former for the packaging and extras and keeps the latter for the PQ.

Originally Posted by Stephen@Cult Labs

Yeah, half the bitrate of the BU version does it no favours.

Too true and another case of BU coming out on top in the PQ stakes.

Originally Posted by Steel76

Arrow really needs to boost the bitrate and better their encodings, as they always have problems with this compared to the BU discs.

Another thing Arrow must learn is to put ALL High Def extras on the second disc, which gives the movie much more room to breath in.
As the more High Def stuff you cram on a disc, even dual layer, the more the compression suffers.

I love Arrows packagings and extras, but the quality on the movie itself should ALWAYS be the top priority.
If they get better at the encodings, then they will REALLY leave BU in the dust.

Well said and the only extra suitable for inclusion on the film disc should be any potential audio commentary.

[Vampix]

I hope Arrow take on board these comments about the picture quality of their Blu-ray release of House by the Cemetery - as compared to the Blue Underground edition - for their Zombie Flesh Eaters Blu.

[Steel76]

Originally Posted by eiren

I've emailed Arrow and now have replacements discs for this and The Beyond on the way to me.

Fantastic customer service. Thank you Arrow

I just feel sorry for the buyers that don´t hang on these forums and don´t even know they got "faulty" discs, and that there are a much improved replacement disc for "The Beyond" etc.

I had to point a few buyer over to this forum to let them know about it.

[Steel76]

Originally Posted by Vampix

I hope Arrow take on board these comments about the picture quality of their Blu-ray release of House by the Cemetery - as compared to the Blue Underground edition - for their Zombie Flesh Eaters Blu.

Yup, if the Arrow disc has a great encoding job and lacks the DNR, then I will be very happy to upgrade

[Sargento]

Ok just put this in the player ... please tell me other members are seeing the same shimmering, flickering snow storm of a mess?!

Is mine faulty? Hopefully ... cos i really hope Arrow aren't putting out terrible releases like this!

Sorry, i have to turn it off ... the Arrow dvd looks great ... this blu is by far the worst thing i have ever seen on this format!

[LoBo]

Originally Posted by Sargento

Ok just put this in the player ... please tell me other members are seeing the same shimmering, flickering snow storm of a mess?!

Is mine faulty? Hopefully ... cos i really hope Arrow aren't putting out terrible releases like this!

Sorry, i have to turn it off ... the Arrow dvd looks great ... this blu is by far the worst thing i have ever seen on this format!

If it looked like these screencaptures: The House by the Cemetery Blu-ray: Dual Format Edition (United Kingdom)

Then, no it isn't defective. This release has scanner noise as most Italian horror films released on Blu-ray. Just like Arrow's City of the Living Dead.

That had a lot of noise plus compression (which looks a bit similar to film grain) problems which only made it worse. This BD also have compression issues compared to the Blue Underground BD.

I think my BU BD looks pretty good compared to old DVD. Both have been compared here: The House by the Cemetery | Blu-ray: US vs. DVD: US